Truth-telling

“Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle?

Who may dwell in Your holy hill?

He who walks uprightly,

And works righteousness,

And speaks the truth in his heart.” (emphasis mine)

~Psalm 15:1-2

I love what appears to be driving these questions posed to God by the psalmist. Essentially, isn’t he asking, “What kind of qualities do you seek in Your closest friends, God? What do you desire?” And from the get-go, it is clear that God desires three things in those who want to be close to Him: walking uprightly, working righteousness and speaking truth in their hearts. While I want to reflect on all three, there’s something about the third quality that stood out to me. Perhaps because it is a quality I can, in one breath, excel in, and in the next breath, take a sharp nosedive.

There are a few different postures toward truth that we can take. There are those who deliberately shut themselves from it, as if hiding in a little insulated closet. “I don’t want to know,” they’ll probably admit outright. Similar to this posture, there are those who, perhaps less intentionally, settle into an “ignorance is bliss” position in life. They aren’t necessarily hiding in the closet, they simply avoid any path that may lead to unpleasant exposure to truth. Then there are those that walk about in life looking pretty open to truth, but when confronted with something unpleasant, choose to shut their eyes and keep walking. And finally, there are those that keep their eyes open at all times, not shielding their gaze from the unpleasant or uncomfortable. Depending on the issue facing us and how it interacts with our own personal issues, most of us probably shift between all four of these positions at different times, though settling more easily in one or two of the postures.

I’d like to think, overall, that I’m a seeker of truth. At times, I fearlessly pursue knowledge, often to the point of discomfort, in order to more fully understand an issue. I desire to be knowledgeable enough to make intelligent, informed, and responsible (morally/spiritually, ethically, socially, financially) decisions. The pursuit of truth often charges me.

However, I can also be sadly disinterested when it comes to hearing truth, if it threatens to overwhelm me at an inconvenient time. I can care about one “issue” (for lack of a better generalization, but also encompassing the suffering of an individual or group of individuals), while sticking my fingers in my ears and humming a tune to drown out the voice of truth regarding another “issue.” I’m more inconsistent than I’d care to admit.

But there’s another kind of truth-telling. And it’s hinted at in this verse - the type of truth-telling that originates in the heart, not out of the mouth, though they are certainly not separate from each other. What is in the heart eventually comes out of the mouth, which may be why God included that little detail in this verse. Seeking truth, speaking truth and living truth begin with what is spoken in the heart.

Think about it. What I believe about myself, about God, about others - the dialogue I have in my heart - controls what comes out of my mouth. How can I walk uprightly and work righteously if I am not first seeking truth and speaking it in my heart? I think God, in His complete knowledge of us and His understanding of how we struggle with our inner dialogue on a daily basis, may be throwing in a reminder to check our source when it comes to truth. Where is the source of what I call “truth” coming from?

And when it comes to pursuing truth, am I hiding away in a closet, avoiding interaction, closing my eyes to the unpleasant, shutting my ears to its intrusion, or welcoming it with eyes wide open?

Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year or On Your Birthday

[ One of the pastors at my church posted this and it goes along so well with what I've been thinking and writing about....]

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God.

1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?

3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?

4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?

5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?

6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?

7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?

8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?

9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?

10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten

years? In eternity?

Copyright © 2003 Donald S. Whitney. All rights reserved. For more short, reproducible pieces like this, see www.BiblicalSpirituality.org

Running tales

I have loved to run for just about fifteen years. Makes me sound so old, but it's true. When I was running, I wasn't just exercising; I was exploring, I was challenging myself, I was free. Which explains a little why I miss it so much. I haven't been able to run much for the past year. I guess my knees had a private meeting and decided to strike for an early retirement. Oh, I've tried to coax them back into the running scene, where they rightfully belong. I've tried just about everything - icing, heating, physical therapy, stretching, cross-training, resting, yelling, sweet-talking, praying, ignoring - but like the rest of me, they can be pretty stubborn. So I've resigned myself to other types of activity and have found a few things that come close to running, but not quite.

The irony of it is that the same could be said of my spiritual running this past year. After years and years of running, my ol' spiritual knees just decided they couldn't handle as much as they used to. I've tried a lot of coaxing, a lot of praying, a lot of things, but nothing seems to fix them (my spiritual knees, that is). I've slowed down. Sometimes, or perhaps much of the time, it feels more like I'm hobbling than running. I think to myself, "I'm much too young for this, right?"

I could stop there with the comparison and just let it be a strange correlation. But that wouldn't be the whole story. I was realizing yesterday (I think God must have planted the thought in my head) that the story of my physical inability to run doesn't have to be story of my spiritual running. I sat with that a moment. You see, with my body, it breaks down over time or with injury, and I have to give into its limitation, much as I fight it. But not so with my spiritual body. It doesn't break down over time. I don't have the same limitations as the rest of my body when it comes to running the course of this life with God.

When my body refuses to run, I sort of have no choice after awhile but to give in and listen to it. But when my spiritual body starts refusing to run, or run well, the amazing reality is that... I keep running. Not because I'm some supernatural being, just because Jesus is. No matter how tired and worn out I get, even spiritually, Jesus is absolutely committed to helping me finish this run - and finish it well. He's already staked his life on it. My marathon days may be over, but not with Jesus. I will never have a spiritual or physical limitation that keeps me from running this marathon of life with Christ.

That is my nugget of hope for the day. My running days are not finished yet.

"Spirit now living and dwelling within me

keep my eyes fixed ever on Jesus' face

Let not the things of this world ever sway me

I'll run till I finish the race" ~ Brooke Fraser

Living the story

I love starting a new year. I have for most of my twenties. There's something hopeful in the air, something breathing possibilities and fresh starts, and I'm a sucker for both. Unlike birthdays, when the day of turning a year older feels no different than the day before, turning the page from one year to the next feels like the drafting of a new chapter. It feels, almost, redemptive.

If only it could stay that way throughout the year. I think one of my goals for this year is simply to remain in an attitude of possibility and hope, that the opportunity for redeeming a story is never out of reach. Anything is possible. Really. Sounds like a lot of positive self-talk, and honestly, I wouldn't believe a word of it, unless...

I weren't the primary author of my story.

I like to write, and it feels that I have been given a lot of control over how I write my story. I certainly have choices - where I'll go with my story, what I'll say, what I'll believe. But really, I'm just, at best, a coauthor. I don't possess any genuine redemptive powers. But the Author of my story does. And that's why I believe it's possible to hold onto hope and possibility and redemption all year long, no matter what twists and turns my story takes.

You see, I have this dreadful tendency to look behind me when I'm writing. You can imagine that makes writing rather difficult. So much of my writing in the past several years has been focused on trying to grieve, interpret and redeem the past. But we can only look back for so long before we lose sight of what's ahead. After awhile of craning my head backwards, I feel like giving up, like what's the point of trying so hard.

Reading the apostle Paul's letter to the ancient church of Philippi, I wonder if he ever felt the same. He certainly had a lot more opposition and suffering than I have experienced. Yet, in one beautiful sweeping declaration, he stated that forgetting all that lay behind him, he would press on and strain forward to what lay ahead. And that was Jesus. That's it, just Jesus - his glorious joy and prize. In fact, Paul said that everything that was worth so much to him before was like garbage in comparison to knowing Jesus. What a statement. This guy knew how to set his gaze in the right place. He knew how to twist his head so that he was facing forward, running and even straining with all his might, toward the most precious goal of all.

Lord knows I would love to run with that kind of perseverance and passion for an entire day, let alone an entire year. I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to ask Jesus to help me run like that, live like that - and write like that. Because even if one day fails, the story can always start over the next day. That's the beauty of living a story that God is writing.

The ultimate massage

I can feel the anxiety churning in my stomach, ticking like an alarm clock, a reminder: you have a counseling appointment today. Ooh. Counseling for me is not entirely different from visiting a massage therapist for a chronic injury. I know it's going to be a little uncomfortable, at times a little painful, as those muscles are being worked on and the toxins released. But it's one of those weird "enjoy the pain" sort of deals, too. In the counseling office, I learn to embrace the pain because I know the knots being worked on need to be loosened, long to be restored. I don't want to live with toxic knots of tension.

I'll be honest, though, it feels like a lot of work. Like digging. Digging my way out of feeling stuck. Digging my way out of years of accumulated unhealthy mindsets, habits, beliefs and coping behaviors. Sometimes my brain and my emotions feel tired. Yet, it's a good kind of tired. A tired that reminds me of all those evenings in high school I'd come home after track or cross country practice and collapse on the couch feeling like I'd worked myself into a satisfactory exhaustion that day. I'd pushed myself to go farther, and I knew it, though I couldn't measure my progress yet. The real test would come on race day. Yeah, perhaps the experience of working in the counseling office (and outside of it) is a bit like that.

The main difference between counseling work and a hard track practice is that I wake up the next morning, not with sore muscles, but with something much less tangible, something with immeasurable value. I wake up with peace. And that peace seeps through to all those knots of emotional tension in my body, gently covering them like a salve. It's not a salve manufactured by my counselor or my own hard work, but by the hands of the most gifted Healer of all. With this salve, may I possess the courage to continue digging.

Five little words

Funny how God will confirm things, multiple times and in ordinary little ways, in areas that He’s recently working on in our lives. At least, He does this with me and I have a hunch I’m not alone. Take these sentences, for instance, that I read this morning from a book by Beth Moore, echoing things I’ve heard lately in the counseling office and through mesages at church:

I used to think that the essence of trusting God was trusting that He wouldn’t allow my fears to become realities. Without realizing it, I mostly trusted God to do what I told Him.

I’m growing convinced that the root of my struggle to turn the page in this season of life lies in the need to address and redefine what trusting God really looks like. I’ll be honest, the thought of trusting the God who’s allowed what I hoped He wouldn’t allow is more than a tad unnerving. It shines a glowering light on my inability to deeply, completely, truthfully, faithfully trust Him. It exposes my misperception and my fear. It invites me to lay down a flimsy masquerade of trust for genuine faith, a false sense of security for the real deal; to believe that whatever risk may come attached with that trust is, in the end, no real risk at all if I truly believe God is trustworthy.

There’s a couple verses in a certain psalm in the Bible that I really want to own. They could be pivotal for me, really, if I take them to heart daily, until they are a part of me. How they would challenge and transform any sense of dread or fear about the past or future, or even today.

[She] will have no fear of bad news; [her] heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. [Her] heart is secure, [she] will have no fear; in the end [she] will look in triumph on [her] foes. ~ Psalm 112:7-8

Is my definition of trust big enough where I can say, “I trust You, God. Period.” ? I’m not there, not even close. But it’s where I’m headed, and I won’t give up. Period.

Home

I feel I’ve been on the road for a long time, trying to find my way home. Some time ago, what I called home appeared to pick up and move to a different neighborhood or city or country - whatever the case, its address changed. Or maybe it got a different paint job, went through some cosmetic remodels, and I’m unable to recognize it anymore, except when flipping through pictures from the past, a walk down nostalgia lane. Ohhhhh, that’s my home. I remember now...

Or maybe, home is right where it’s always been, but my eyes have changed and I can’t see it the way I used to. It’s blurry to me, feeling so close I could reach out and touch it, but not quite at the tips of my fingers. What exactly is home? Is it a person, a place, a community, a building, a state of being? Maybe it's some of these things but also something more, something greater, something, well, mysterious?

At church today, I was overcome by many sensations as I observed and participated in the worship. First, I’ve never been part of a “liturgical” church, and coming from a more charismatic background, I never expected one such church to feel so alive (just being honest). I don’t know how to explain it, but I’m a writer, so of course I’ll try. When I’m surrounded by this particular community of people, immersed in the worship and listening to the teaching, it’s like my heartbeat, so long slightly out-of-sync, finally blends in to add its unique rhythm to the beautiful beats around me. It just.... fits. Like my heart and mind and soul breathe a collective sigh of relief as I sink further into the pew, I’m home. Almost.

When I went forward to take communion, having only been to this congregation three times, I felt a pang in my heart as I tore a piece of bread from the loaf held out to me by one of the pastors, whom I’d just met that morning. Looking me gently in the eyes, he said quietly, “Christ’s body broken for you, Amber.” I moved to take the cup of wine, and the man holding the tray, whom I’d also just met that morning, said to me, “Christ’s blood shed for you, Amber.” Tears filled my eyes as I walked back to my seat, scanning the crowded room of people from all over the city, all walks of life, most of them I have never met. And I didn’t feel like just a face in the crowd. I was known. Not just because some pastors knew my name, but it felt to me like a sweet reminder that I was part of a family dearly loved by God, my Father, and even in the largeness of this family, He knows my name. He knows I long for home, for community, for belonging and purpose.

We sang a song in closing. Normally this song wouldn’t move my emotions the way it did, but today, I couldn’t make it through without crying. Holding the bulletin up to my face, I let the tears fall behind the paper, soaking in the words of hope and joy that I couldn’t actually get out of my mouth but were belting out from my heart as I listened to the voices around me.

On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand, and cast a wishful eye

To Canaan’s fair and happy land, where my possessions lie

O’er all those wide extended plains, shines one eternal day

There God the Son forever reigns, and scatters night away

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the promised land

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the promised land

No chilling winds nor poisonous breath, can reach that healthful shore

Sickness and sorrow, pain and death, are felt and feared no more

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the promised land

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the promised land

When I shall reach that happy place, I’ll be forever blest

For I shall see my Father’s face, and in His bosom rest

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the promised land

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the promised land

For I shall see my Father's face, and in His bosom rest... sigh. What could be a better home than that, than resting against my Father's chest (not literally, of course, but figuratively it's a beautiful image)? The hope of a home that will never move or crumble. It’s almost within reach, but not quite yet. A reminder that, close as I may come at times to finding "home" here in this life, it's meant to be illusive, unattainable. I won't fully unpack my bags until I reach the promised land and run into my Father's arms.